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Police said the Nigerian men were being initiated into a gay club. The accused say they were attending a birthday party. The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act , which banned gay relationships and entrenched intolerance of sexual minorities in Nigerian society, was signed by Goodluck Jonathan, then president, in January The law caused an international outcry, with condemnation from global human rights organisation and western governments.
Two days of hearings have been scheduled this week to allow the prosecution to make its case.
The trial is likely to last for several months. Surveys have historically shown high levels of homophobia in Nigeria, but some have pointed to what campaigners say is a tentative, growing acceptance of gay men and women. In June, high court judges in Botswana ruled that laws criminalising same-sex relations were unconstitutional and should be struck down , in a major victory for gay rights campaigners in Africa.
Jubilant activists in the packed courtroom cheered the unanimous decision, which came a month after a setback in Kenya when a court rejected an attempt to repeal similar colonial-era laws. Angola, Mozambique and the Seychelles have scrapped anti-gay laws in recent years. Kenyan judges rejected the precedent set by India, which last year legalised gay sex between consenting adults, as well as by a series of other judgments across the Commonwealth and elsewhere, and said Kenya should make its own laws to reflect its own culture. In Tanzania, authorities in Dar es Salaam, the biggest city, have launched a series of crackdowns on gay people in recent years.
The territory controlled by the Empire included much of modern-day northern and central Nigeria. The Sultan sent out emirs to establish a suzerainty over the conquered territories and promote Islamic civilization, the Emirs in turn became increasingly rich and powerful through trade and slavery. By the s, the largest slave population in the world, about two million, was concentrated in the territories of the Sokoto Caliphate. The use of slave labor was extensive, especially in agriculture.
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The Atlantic slave trade was engaged in by European companies until it was outlawed in After that illegal smugglers purchased slaves along the coast by native slavers. Britain's West Africa Squadron sought to intercept the smugglers at sea. The rescued slaves were taken to Freetown, a colony in West Africa originally established for the resettlement of freed slaves from Britain. British missionaries expanded their operations and traveled further inland. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the company had vastly succeeded in subjugating the independent southern kingdoms along the Niger River, the British conquered Benin in , and, in the Anglo-Aro War — , defeated other opponents.
The defeat of these states opened up the Niger area to British rule. In , the company's territory came under the direct control of the British government and established the Southern Nigeria Protectorate as a British protectorate and part of the British Empire, the foremost world power at the time. By , the British had begun plans to move north into the Sokoto Caliphate.
Lugard used rivalries between many of the emirs in the southern reach of the caliphate and the central Sokoto administration to prevent any defense as he worked towards the capital. As the British approached the city of Sokoto, the new Sultan Muhammadu Attahiru I organized a quick defense of the city and fought the advancing British-led forces. The British force quickly won, sending Attahiru I and thousands of followers on a Mahdist hijra. In the northeast, the decline of the Bornu Empire gave rise to the British-controlled Borno Emirate which established Abubakar Garbai of Borno as the ruler.
In , the British-victory in the Battle of Kano gave them a logistical edge in pacifying the heartland of the Sokoto Caliphate and parts of the former Bornu Empire. On March 13, , at the grand market square of Sokoto, the last Vizier of the Caliphate officially conceded to British rule. Fredrick Lugard abolished the Caliphate, but retained the title Sultan as a symbolic position in the newly organized Northern Nigeria Protectorate. This remnant became known as 'Sokoto Sultanate Council'. Inhabitants of the southern region sustained more interaction, economic and cultural, with the British and other Europeans owing to the coastal economy.
Under Britain's policy of indirect rule and validation of Islamic tradition, the Crown did not encourage the operation of Christian missions in the northern, Islamic part of the country. By independence in , regional differences in modern educational access were marked. The legacy, though less pronounced, continues to the present day. Imbalances between North and South were expressed in Nigeria's political life as well. For instance, northern Nigeria did not outlaw slavery until whilst in other parts of Nigeria slavery was abolished soon after colonialism. By the middle of the 20th century, a great wave for independence was sweeping across Africa.
Nigeria achieved independence in Azikiwe replaced the colonial governor-general in November The opposition comprised the comparatively liberal Action Group AG , which was largely dominated by the Yoruba and led by Obafemi Awolowo. At independence, the cultural and political differences were sharp among Nigeria's dominant ethnic groups: the Hausa—Fulani 'Northerners' , Igbo 'Easterners' and Yoruba 'Westerners'.
Southern Cameroons since renamed by separatists as Ambazonia opted to join the Republic of Cameroon while Northern Cameroons chose to remain in Nigeria. The northern part of the country then became larger than the southern part. In , the nation established a Federal Republic, with Azikiwe as its first president. Military rule and Civil War — Main articles: Nigerian military juntas of —79 and —99 and Nigerian Civil War The Republic of Biafra in June , when it declared its independence from the rest of NigeriaThe disequilibrium and perceived corruption of the electoral and political process led, in , to back-to-back military coups.
The coup plotters succeeded in assassinating Sir Ahmadu Bello and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa alongside prominent leaders of the Northern Region and also Premier Samuel Akintola of the Western Region, but the coup plotters struggled to form a central government. Later, the counter-coup of , supported primarily by Northern military officers, facilitated the rise Yakubu Gowon as military head of state.
Tension rose between North and South; Igbos in Northern cities suffered persecution and many fled to the Eastern Region. Colonel Emeka Ojukwu declared the region independence from the federation as a state called the Republic of Biafra, under his leadership. The month war, with a long siege of Biafra and its isolation from trade and supplies, ended in January Britain and the Soviet Union were the main military backers of the Nigerian government; with Nigeria utilizing air support from Egyptian pilots provided by Gamal Abdel Nasser,[68][69] while France and Israel aided the Biafrans.
Despite these revenues, the military government did little to improve the standard of living of the population, help small and medium businesses, or invest in infrastructure.
As oil revenues fueled the rise of federal subsidies to states, the federal government became the centre of political struggle and the threshold of power in the country. As oil production and revenue rose, the Nigerian government became increasingly dependent on oil revenues and international commodity markets for budgetary and economic concerns.
For this triumvirate, they convinced General Murtala Mohammad to become military head of state, with General Olusegun Obasanjo as his second-in-command, and General Theophilus Danjuma as the third. Dimka lacked widespread support among the military and his coup failed, forcing him to flee. In , constituent assembly was elected to draft a new constitution, which was published on September 21, , when the ban on political activity was lifted. Obasanjo peacefully transferred power to Shagari, becoming the first head of state in Nigerian history to willingly step down.
All five parties won representation in the National Assembly. In August Shagari and the NPN were returned to power in a landslide victory, with a majority of seats in the National Assembly and control of 12 state governments. But the elections were marred by violence and allegations of widespread vote rigging and electoral malfeasance led to legal battles over the results.
Beginning in , Nigerians participated in a return to democracy when Olusegun Obasanjo transferred power to the civilian regime of Shehu Shagari. The military carefully planned the return to civil rule putting in place measures to ensure that political parties have broader support than witnessed during the first republic.
The Shagari government became viewed as corrupt by virtually all sectors of Nigerian society.
In the inspectors of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC began to notice 'the slow poisoning of the waters of this country'. It was coordinated by key officers of the Nigerian military and led to the overthrow of the Second Nigerian Republic and the installation of Major General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State. The military coup of Muhammadu Buhari shortly after the regime's re-election in was generally viewed as a positive development.
His regime was overthrown by another military coup in In , he established the Nigerian Political Bureau of which made recommendations for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic.
In , Babangida started making plans for the transition to the Third Nigerian Republic. He urged all Nigerians to join either of the parties, which the late Chief Bola Ige famously referred to as 'two leper hands. In November , after a census was conducted, the National Electoral Commission NEC announced on 24 January that both legislative elections to a bicameral National Assembly and a presidential election would be held later that year.
A process of voting was adopted, referred to as Option A4. This process advocated that any candidate needed to pass through adoption for all elective positions from the local government, state government and federal government. The presidential election held on June 12, the first since the military coup of However, Babangida annulled the elections, leading to massive civilian protests that effectively shut down the country for weeks.
In August , Babangida finally kept his promise to relinquish power to a civilian government, but not before appointing Ernest Shonekan head of the Interim National Government. In the government hanged environmentalist Ken Saro-Wiwa on trumped-up charges in the deaths of four Ogoni elders. He looted money to offshore accounts in western European banks and defeated coup plots by arresting and bribing generals and politicians.
His successor, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, adopted a new constitution on 5 May which provided for multiparty elections. On 29 May , Abubakar transferred power to the winner of the presidential election, former military ruler General Olusegun Obasanjo as the second democratically elected civilian President of Nigeria heralding the beginning of the Fourth Nigerian Republic.
Although the elections that brought Obasanjo to power in the presidential election and for a second term in the presidential election were condemned as unfree and unfair, Nigeria has shown marked improvements in attempts to tackle government corruption and hasten development. The international community, which had been observing Nigerian elections to encourage a free and fair process, condemned this one as being severely flawed. In a national television address in , he added that if Nigerians did not like the victory of his handpicked successor, they would have an opportunity to vote again in four years.
He went on to win the elections, with the international media reporting the elections as having run smoothly with relatively little violence or voter fraud, in contrast to previous elections. In the presidential election, former military head of state General Muhammadu Buhari, leader of the CPC faction of the APC — who had previously contested in the , , and presidential elections as the APC presidential candidate defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan of the People's Democratic Party PDP by over two million votes, ending the party's sixteen year rule in the country, and marking the first time in the history of Nigeria that an incumbent president lost to an opposition candidate.
Observers generally praised the election as being fair. Jonathan was generally praised for conceding defeat and limiting the risk of unrest. It is influenced by the Westminster System model[citation needed] in the composition and management of the upper and lower houses of the bicameral legislature.
The president is both head of state and head of the federal government; the leader is elected by popular vote to a maximum of two four-year terms. The Senate is a seat body with three members from each state and one from the capital region of Abuja; members are elected by popular vote to four-year terms.
The House contains seats, with the number of seats per state determined by population. All major parties have practised vote-rigging and other means of coercion to remain competitive. In the period before election, a report of experts prepared by the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies showed that only the and elections were held without systematic rigging. Because of the above issues, Nigeria's political parties are pan-national and secular in character though this does not preclude the continuing preeminence of the dominant ethnicities.